Quote:

Originally posted by Deanna Thompson:

 Quote:

Originally posted by Randall Hoadley:
Let us try it again and see if they close this thread when they can not win.

Statements like that will get a thread closed faster than anything.

The moderators monitor this board on a voluntary basis and if ANY of you don't like being moderated, you are welcome to leave at anytime.

Statements like the one Deanna quoted above are uncalled for...and she is right, no pity here!

Get back to the topic and keep the snotty remarks out of it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Looks like at least part of this thread is a continuation of the one RC closed today (3 pgs!), i.e. do dogs bark in prey? I frankly don’t understand what this fuss is all about. Forget about drives for a second: why do dogs bark to begin with? They bark for the same reason we bark (or whine)--to COMMUNICATE. Some barks (or forms of communication) are taught, some are natural.

Watch a litter of pups interacting with each other: you hear defensive barks--“don’t come near me”, social barks--“let’s play”, or a short half-choked-sounding bark meaning “pay attention, there may be trouble” which causes the rest of the pack to immediately drop whatever they were doing and perk their ears. Their favored game is “chase”-- by-product of prey drive. The game is usually initiated by a play bark and a body movement (play bow). Once the chase is on, barking stops. Why? Cause there’s nothing more to communicate. It is very clear to both parties at that moment who is “prey” and who is “predator”.

When we prepare a puppy for H+B, we TEACH him to bark as a form of communication between him and the helper--bark elicits response, in which case prey is the motivation (as RC said). As the dog matures and becomes conditioned to things to come (stick hits, fight) his barks will become more meaningful--he may bark out of fight drive or defense drive, depending on temperament. It’s that simple.

As far as coon hounds barking when chasing prey: I don’t know much about coon hunting, but from what little I read I understand that their job is not to catch prey, but to TREE it, and announce (communicate) their find to the hunter by barking. So barking would be desirable in this case and is either taught or, rather, bred. I have no clue what Pomeranians are bred for, but judging from the one down the street it’s for non-stop barking <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> .

 Quote:

Originally posted by Randall Hoadley:
I have been with the sheriffs department when we cut the hounds loose on escapes. They did bark. When we would practice with them one at a time, they barked the first time out of habit and then they just ran after the bad guy.

Probably some kind of communication going on between the hounds: “You take the guy on the right, I take the guy on the left” <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> .

Back to definitions for a minute. I have said it before and I am on to broken record. Like it or not, there is a set of definitions used here. They are available and I am going to post the links so everybody knows where to go look:
http://www.leerburg.com/drives.htm
http://www.leerburg.com/drives2.htm
http://www.leerburg.com/qaprot.htm#fight

It doesn't matter if you agree, if you use these terms this way we can hold discussions of the real issues.
Note: Defense drive involves fear, by definition. Fight drive would be a dog not in fear.

In the Giants and some of the other Mossoloid breeds I have delt with have some different attitudes towards work than the Shephard breeds. One of the bigggest is the intimidation factor. They know they can intimidate based on their size and LOVE to use it. They also seem to be more vocal in situations than what a Shephard breed would be, hence they tend to bark in some strange situations. I have no concern about a Giant that is noisy on the sleeve, like I might with a GSD.

They also tend to like the fight better than just possesing the prey item. It is often more difficult to get them to carry. If you slip the sleeve without giving much of a fight they tend to just spit it out and stare at the helper waiting for him to be serious. If you fight them longer so they "feel"they "won" something they will usually carry longer. What I have seen in the Shephard breeds is that they often see the bite as a reward and are willing to work for just a bite.

Here is where definitions get tricky. "Defensive" breeds don't work in "defense" drive most of the time. They just view the work differently. THey are much less willing to chase down an opponent than a Shephard breed. If the bad guy will run away they will take that as a win and it is just fine with them. This leads to an odd problem with helpers used to working only the Shephard breeds. Often to get a "Defensive breed" dog to bite you have to charge them rather than move away from them. So standard "prey" motions won't work. THey will do a courage test, in prey drive, with great zest and stand and watch the bad guy run away from them. The bigger and heavier the breed, the more this seems to be the case. When starting Giants, and now with my BRT, the toughest thing is to convince the helper/agitator to stand and fight the dog early in training. The best and fastest way to get a prey bite with my BRT bitch is to do a handler defense. Do a runaway and she will stand and wave bye bye and watch them go. It is taking some time to correct this issue in the breed.

People often describe these dogs as having low prey drive. In fact they often have good prey drive if you stimulate it properly. The BRT is a good example. Everybody I talk to about the breed says they have low prey drive. In watching some work they have good prey drive, it is just difficult to get them to show it.

Originally posted by Richard Cannon:
The best and fastest way to get a prey bite with my BRT bitch is to do a handler defense. Do a runaway and she will stand and wave bye bye and watch them go. It is taking some time to correct this issue in the breed. And how would you correct this issue?

Renee,

What we have been doing is a couple of things. Put the dog in a down stay and move away from the dog. Have the agitator start towards the dog and charge me, send the dog and have the agitator run past me. As we have done it we start in different positions to give the agitator time to get farther away. If she quits on the run charge her. Also by firing her up with other types of agitation we can also get her to do the runaways. Over time she is getting to be willing to go farther in to a chase and work with the agitator starting on the other side of me and running away.

Richard, are you training the dog for sch. or pp?

PP, SchH isn't my cup of tea.

I agree with the drive definitions. The thing is, no matter what kind of drive the dog is in, the other drives exist within the same dog. The amount and influence they have on the pronounced drive varies from dog to dog. The other drives do have an influence and it is an observable influence.

The nice thing about prey and defense drive is both can be built. Like someone mentioned in other postings it is the situation that brings the dogs drive into play. You have got to have one component to have the other.

You will have no argument from me that some dogs are more inclined to work in defense drive over prey drive because i know it is true.

Still it is not black and white as to why. I try to think of it like this:

I take into account all the drives in a dog and think of a sliding color scale for each one. 1 being weaker influence and 100 being the highest influence.

(I am working on a color program that represents such an effect. It is like the Red Blue and Green color bars that give color a # value. This maybe to complicated to write about without being able to demonstrate it.)


I just know prey drive and defense drive can be built though conditioning. I also know they influence each other even if the dog seems to have no chase behavior in him, he does. It is just that drive is suppressed or has a very small value so its influence is less distinguishable.

I know each dog by their temperament will have both prey and defense drives and a sort of base level for each that is biological.

Prey and defense can be build up or torn down through conditioning with each dog having its limit (threshold) to how much it can be influenced or before the drive changes. I call this quality: Drive Resiliency.

Fight drive is all about confidence and the dogs ability and willingness to win. He needs to have a minimum and relatively high level of both prey and defensive drives combined with experience before you will see true fight drive in action.


Getting back to the original question I had... The dog must one close his mouth before the catch and 2 the dog will demonstrate a quite focus just before the grab.

Some dogs are vocal right up to the bite and as most people on this forum know we can and do train them to be vocal right up to the bite like in the Hold & Bark.

Yet even in the H & B, we can observe in a split second interval between the dog's last bark and the actual bite. In this time frame his mouth will close and he focuses all concentration just before the strike. All dogs have different drive strengths influencing them. Because some of that strength is genetic we can observe breed traits. Perhaps it also explains why so there is a latency issue that varies in this species specific behavior. (closes its mouth and focuses before biting)

At least that is the thread of my thinking.

This topic has been more for the behaviorist out there and like others have mentions one doesn't need to know all the terms and nuances to be a good and effective trainer. To me the nuances are interesting because I think their study can at times reveal new or better understandings about the dog that can in turn improve your training even if it doesn't apply to your current training goals.

 Quote:

Originally posted by Renee Felknor:

 Quote:

Originally posted by Richard Cannon:
The best and fastest way to get a prey bite with my BRT bitch is to do a handler defense. Do a runaway and she will stand and wave bye bye and watch them go. It is taking some time to correct this issue in the breed.

And how would you correct this issue?

Selective breeding for the breed to increase the innate prey drive base and prey building exercises known to increase prey drive for the particular dog.

Putting the dog away and not playing when they want to play the most and small chase games like Ball-on-the-wall and so on.

8 years ago at the Tom Rose School, Jesse Gabriel and Keith Benson (now of Triple Crown Academy) and I, helped a fellow student named Lori (cant think of her last name) with her two dogs Sarek and Kyler. They were both black American German Shepherds and hated each other. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> (another story) Looking back I think, Tom loved us training dysfunctional dogs and seeing us beat our heads against the walls of the training building.

We made these two dogs ball crazy but they started as a prey duds. We did this just to learn the scope of how to build prey drive and she wanted one of them to meet the requirement of a certified narcotics dog.

These dogs would hardly even glance at a ball rolled away from them. So it was the "glance" we started with.

That built to movement for the ball and eventually to chase it. Later they would run and chase it and even later still she could use it as an effective reward other training. So it can be done it is just a lot of work and though I learned alot about how to build prey drive it is best to go with selection unless you are a dog training freak. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />